Police two win sacking appeal

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The Chief Commissioner is given 14 days to challenge the Supreme
Court decision

Two policemen who won a Supreme Court fight to overturn their
sacking by Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon will be entitled to
ask for up to a year's back pay.

Justice Tim Smith upheld applications by Paul Dale, a detective
sergeant formerly attached to the major drug investigation
division, and Eddie Robb, a former senior constable stationed at
Benalla, to quash their sackings.

But Justice Smith stayed the decision for 14 days, allowing Ms
Nixon time to consider an appeal. He also gave the men two weeks to
seek a declaration that would give them pay and other entitlements
that had accrued since their dismissals.

The men were dismissed under section 68 of the Police Regulation
Act, which allows the Chief Commissioner to sack police officers
she believes are unsuitable.

Justice Smith said Mr Robb and Mr Dale succeeded on the basis
that they were not given procedural fairness.

He refused to uphold complaints that Ms Nixon failed to comply
with the act, and might be perceived as biased through her
decision-making conduct and media statements.

Mr Robb was dismissed on August 10 last year, after Ms Nixon
cited his propensity for violence, poor treatment of others in
vulnerable situations and a failure to take advantage of the
opportunities for change.

Justice Smith said a notice of proposed dismissal noted 25
complaints against Mr Robb between 1989 and 2002. He said the
complaints included allegations, some of which were substantiated,
of assault and predatory behaviour towards women.

But Justice Smith said Mr Robb was denied procedural fairness
because he was denied access to the material before Ms Nixon, and
received incomplete information about the grounds she was
considering.

Mr Dale was dismissed on September 30 last year, on the grounds
of his association with two police informers. The dismissal notice
alleged he planned a crime with murdered informer Terence Hodson,
and had failed to properly supervise another policeman who had a
connection with Hodson's family.

According to the notice, Hodson said Mr Dale had accepted $1000
in cash from him and had borrowed a pistol and bullets without
returning the bullets.

Police Association secretary Paul Mullett welcomed the Supreme
Court's decision as a victory for the association. He denied there
was endemic corruption in the Victorian police force, calling the
establishment of the Office of Police Integrity and use of
no-confidence provisions to sack police knee-jerk reactions.

Ms Nixon said the judge had found she made her decisions with
fairness and without bias, but he had disagreed with some of her
procedures. "This was not a decision by the judge as to whether I
was right or wrong in taking the decision," she said. "It is an
issue around procedural, administrative law."

Mr Mullett rejected this view, saying the men had been denied
natural justice. "There can't be a legal technicality when you
don't provide people with the evidence that you are purportedly
using to terminate them," he said.